Roller skating generally and especially in-line roller skating have been practical and recreational activities for quite some time. Due largely to technological advances which provide ever lighter, stronger, quieter and faster skates, in-line roller skating recently has become an increasingly popular sport.
A modern in-line roller skate typically includes a boot with a wheel assembly permanently affixed to the sole. Wheels are rotatably mounted to the assembly with axles in conventional manner. The skater inserts a foot into the boot and fastens the boot firmly to the foot with a fastening means such as laces or straps.
Permanent attachment of the wheel assembly to the boot presents a major inconvenience to the modern in-line skate user. When the skater arrives at a destination such as inside a building, or encounters an unpaved road surface, the skater may wish to stop skating and begin walking. A skater using a skate with a permanently attached wheel assembly must remove the whole skate from the foot. Furthermore, the skater must carry shoes to the destination to use after removing the skates.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,314,199 discloses convertible in-line roller skates that include a skate assembly which permits rapidly interchanging and reversing ice blades and in-line rollers. Each skate includes a shoe having a sole plate and toe and heel attachment pads secured to the plate, with a surface blade coupling means provided in a recessed zone of the toe and heel attachment. Among other things, the skate also has a blade support assembly with a frame having rollers or ice blades attached to the bottom thereof. The frame includes toe and heel pad receiving cavities designed to firmly receive and retain the attachment pads in releasable manner. A skater using the disclosed convertible in-line roller skates would not be able to walk around after removing the frame from the skate assembly because the attachment pads protrude downward from the sole plate toward the walking surface. Thus the bottom of the shoe has an uneven surface which makes walking difficult. Furthermore, walking could wear excessively and destroy the attachment pads. Thus the patented roller skates do not solve the problem mentioned above.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,507,506 of Shadroui describes a roller boot quick release/attach mechanism which allows the wheels to be quickly and easily removed from the boot portion of an in-line skate. The boot contains slide channels built into the boot sole and heel. The wheel frame contains slide rails and a lock/release lever to provide attachment and locking of the wheel frame to the boot. Shadroui's quick release/attach mechanism permits the skater to dismount from wheel portion and to walk in the boot portion of the skate. Nevertheless, it is still desirable to provide an improved in-line roller skate with an easily removable/re-attachable boot for walking and a strong mechanism for connecting the boot and wheel assembly.
A strong connection mechanism is desirable to give the skater superior control in high performance skating maneuvers such as safely negotiating sharp turns at high speed and skating on and over obstacles such as curbs, steps and uneven pavement. Such a new in-line roller skate with quickly detachable wheel assembly is disclosed herein. The boot can be attached by simply stepping into the wheel assembly and buckling a strap. Moreover, when attached the boot and wheel assembly are very firmly connected, thus providing excellent transmission of force between the skater's foot and the wheels.
Accordingly, the present invention provides an in-line roller skate comprising:
(a) a boot having a sole, a toe section and a heel section; the boot being undercut upwards from the sole to define a shoulder along at least the heel section; PA1 (b) a wheel assembly having a head plate with a forward portion, wherein the wheel assembly is releasably attachable to the boot; PA1 (c) an upwardly directed flange attached to the head plate and adapted to engage the shoulder of the boot; PA1 (d) a strap means attached to the wheel assembly for releasably fastening the sole firmly to the head plate; and PA1 (e) gripping means for releasably engaging the toe section to a forward portion of the head plate.